May Day in Chile

Investor’s Business Daily’s Monica Showalter has a good page-one story on the thirtieth anniversary of Chile’s private social security system. She has been in touch with the Chilean architect of the system, Jose Pinera, who told her that he set the May 1 date for implementation of the system in order to alter the meaning of the May Day holiday into a celebration of genuine empowerment.
Pinera has sought to retrieve the day from the Marxists and replace it with something honorable. For inspiration, Monica even sent Pinera John Hinderaker’s “A dishonorable holiday” post for inspiration. Coincidentally, John’s post featured a photo of thugs in Santiago, Chile.
The Marxist types are a miserable minority in Chile. Monica urges readers to take a look at Pinera’s twitter search feed showing a stream of ordinary Chileans sending Pinera their thank-yous for his pension design. The real Chile is speaking through those tweets of appreciation.
Monica says that she wrote this article because she is amazed at how insipid our public debate over Social Security entitlement solvency is: “Any reform of Social Security is always painted as a contest of stealing grandma’s check and doing nothing. Obama just loves painting it that way and we all know what his intentions are. But not even Rand Paul has anything more imaginative than means-testing and benefit cuts as his solution. . .” There is much more to be said, of course, and I get the feeling that Monica will be back before long to say it.